1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical sound generator used for electronic musical instruments or the like.
2. Discussion of Background
Electronic organs and electronic pianos are provided with an external interface for inputting and outputting performance data as well as a performance interface for actually giving a performance, such as a keyboard, and a panel interface for making various settings for the performance. A section having these interfaces is hereinafter called first control means.
The above-described electronic musical instruments also have multiple types of sound sources corresponding to the number of sounds stored by sampling. The sound sources are provided as a plurality of sound source boards. A plurality of sound production sequences are also provided, and the number of sounds corresponding to the number of sequences can be produced according to the tone, the key number, and the intensity of performance (including what is converted from velocity data) instructed by the interface section. Usually, the sound production sequences are provided in correspondence with the tones. A section having these functions and circuits of the sound sources is hereinafter called second control means.
In the above-described electronic organs and pianos, when a key is pressed or released on the performance interface, such as a keyboard, an instruction to start or finish producing the sound is output to the second control means, and the second control means starts or finishes producing the sound in response to the instruction within the maximum number of sound production sequences according to the tone, key number and intensity of performance.
Also since the above-described electronic musical instruments are provided with the external interface as described above, performance data is input from a sequencer or another MIDI unit and transmitted to the second control means, and the second control means starts or finishes producing the sound in response to an instruction included in the data within the maximum number of sound production sequences according to the tone, key number and intensity of performance.
The total number of output sequences of the data output from the performance interface, such as a keyboard, and the data output through the external interface should be within the maximum number of sound production sequences.
When a key is pressed or released on the keyboard, the production of the corresponding sound is started or finished. If data input through the external interface at the same time indicates the same starting point of sound production at the same tone and the same musical interval, in other words, if double key pressing occurs in the same track, the production of the sound specified through the keyboard is finished according to an instruction from the first control means when it detects the release of the key.
The production of the sound specified by data input through the external interface is finished according to an instruction included data in a gatetime or the like.
If noise occurs in a transmission path connecting the first control means and the second control means, an erroneous instruction caused by the noise may be transmitted, which may result in the inability to find a sound production sequence to be stopped with the result that the sound production sequence to be stopped continues to be produced.